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User blog:Ludicrine/The First Draft
wat I started working on the first draft of The First Week in 2016, intending for it to be a quick, simple introduction to who Baxter is as a person. Obviously, that didn't work out, because I write at the pace of snail, but also because a lot of things have undergone massive changes since the story started - this wiki was in the process of being sandpapered up for the public, Sosh was working on redesigning Zachary (you know, the character sharing the spot of "most important guy in the story"), we began workshopping what sort of technology would be available on Ludus during this time, and a bunch of other stuff. While I certainly could go ahead and finish up the story with its old plot intact, it'd set me up for failure with the future of the Beta Timeline. I'm still ing with a new outline for it that doesn't just feel like a boring expository dump, and once it gets to a point where I feel like it does Baxter, Zachary, and Ludusian worldbuilding enough justice, I'll get to finishing it. As of my writing this, I'm one chapter away from completing The Thief of Silverwood, which I'm very excited for, but I'm trying my hardest to finish Beta stories in the order that I would personally like to see them read - as such, I'm holding off on that and future projects until I can do a good job setting up base camp here. That being said, it feels completely dirty to have people waiting almost four years before I can put out a single story describing who Baxter is. This blog is a condensed version of what the original The First Week was going to be. 1 Zachary, borrowing the same vague backstory from the Alpha-Archaic Timeline, is ancient dragonkin royalty, inexplicably alive and unbothered on modern-day Ludus - except, of course, by monsters. He is bewildered at the fact that the new dominant species, the gridmasks, have managed to get by for so many years while completely avoiding the wildlife. One day, after putting up with some garden harassment for far too long, Zach chases after a plant-eating "digger" and runs into a businessman. The guy's pretty sure of himself and acts like a big deal - not really in the "how dare you, don't you know who I am" kind of way, but in a "oh, please, don't worry about it, I'm just an ordinary guy" kind of way. Zach is amazed to find that the man has near-perfect handling of the creature, and after sparking a short, awkward conversation about it, he gives Zach a business card with his number on it before walking away. This is, of course, a double-whammy for Zach, as the business card is only signed "QUINT" (not a full name), and because he has no idea what the numbers are supposed to be for. 2 Zach has managed to get the digger into his home, for better or for worse. He's also become acquainted with vaguely-phones-but-totally-not-phones! Hooray! He calls up a Quint, but at first meets with an unfamiliar voice on the other end (which, as we know from , is Canter Pathos Quint). Canter, realizing the call is not for them, passes it off to one Bax (all the while exclaiming things which suggest that Bax has a knack for getting himself and/or others into hot water). Bax is enthused to hear from Zach and suggests that they meet up at a restaurant to talk about monsters, hoping to give Zach a business proposal after seeing if they can work well together. Before the man is about to abruptly end the conversation, Zach admits that he really, really doesn't know who this guy is - which shocks him enough that he, for a moment, drops his phony confident-salesman act completely. He introduces himself as Baxter Ethos Quint, and seems very excited to meet with Zach the following day. 3 Zach shows up late to the restaurant, as the digger in his home had caused him to lose the meeting time. He takes the monster along with him, and it seems better behaved than before, though still feisty. Baxter is still overjoyed to meet him, and it's revealed that he's reserved the entire restaurant for the whole day just as a precaution. The waitstaff start to freak out and demand that Zach take the monster outside, but Bax pays them off on the spot. Zach talks about who he is and where he came from, then asks Baxter how he knows so much about monsters. Bax says that it was an idea from Canter, his older sibling, and he figures that the capture, taming, and sale of monsters as pets could be a lucrative and life-changing enterprise - though he admits that he needs a lot of help getting it off the ground, and he could use a business partner. Zach realizes that Bax is referring to him, and starts to protest, citing a lack of knowledge with the creatures. Baxter simply notes that Zach has gotten along fine with the digger over the course of just two days, and reassures him that he's just the person for the job. 4 A few days later, it's become the norm for Baxter to spend a preposterous amount of money renting out a lavish space for him to talk with Zach. He's shared much more about himself by this time - his family, the Quints, have always been some of the richest people on the continent, but have always been rather quiet about their earnings as to not draw attention to themselves. Aegis and Ingrid Quint, Baxter's parents, went missing years ago, leaving Baxter and his two siblings to fend for themselves, and Bax's first business in nanotechnology was unfortunately a flop. The past few days, Baxter has been supposedly reassuring Zachary that he'll put his money where his mouth is, and that he's no simple con artist: he demonstrates his old technology and pitches different ways that it could be used to their aid. Zach rebukes Baxter. He tells him that he can see through what he's doing: not trying to con him, but not concerned with winning his trust the right way, Bax is instead trying to impress Zach in order to get him to agree to his business proposal no-questions-asked. Zach would simply be the face behind Baxter's next attempt at getting rich. Zach says that the deal is off and that he can't be won over that way, but tells Baxter that if he decides that he really wants to change peoples' lives and do something special, he'll reconsider. 5 Zach is at home with the digger, more tamed than ever, and wonders if he should try his hand at changing how people view monsters on his own. He decides that it'll take a lot of work, and possibly more resources than he has at the moment, and briefly thinks about if his only opportunity to do so was with Baxter. He then pushes those thoughts from his mind, acknowledging that he did the right thing, and that he's still capable of doing the right thing in the future - it'll just take more work. He suddenly gets a call. It's from Baxter. Businessman facade dropped, he apologizes, says that he really wants to create something good with Zach, and invites him to lunch once more - this time at his own house rather than a lavish restaurant. The scene shifts to later that day, with the two finalizing the name of their business, talking about how they'll get it off the ground, and generally bonding as friends without pretense. Epilogue Zachary smirks and puts down a copy of The First Week, written by Sir J. D. C. Conscience. Baxter asks him what he thought of it, and Zach goes on a (friendly) rant about it - starting off by stating that "that's not how that happened, at all," he claims that Baxter went out of his way to make Zach seem meek and awkward, that the writing was horrible, and that "Sir J. D. C. Conscience" was a horrible pen name that someone would obviously trace back to Quint himself. Baxter smiles, suggesting that this was - somehow - part of his plan. Zach tries working through his madness and realizes that the story has managed to redirect all of the spotlight back to Baxter, appearing as an obnoxious cash-grab spectacle to the average reader - thus moving all the attention away from Zach and his past, a move done in order to protect him from old enemies. Zach thanks his friend for the gesture as the two crack jokes about Sir Conscience's failing career as a writer. Category:Blog posts Category:Summaries